Personal characteristics and the impact of transformational leadership behaviors on follower outcomes

by Thompson, Charles N.

Transformational leadership has emerged as the dominant model for understanding how leaders impact affective and behavioral responses of their followers. The current study investigated the extent to which follower core self-evaluation (Judge et al., 1997) and affect-based trust in leadership impact the relationship between transformational leadership behaviors and work outcomes, such as follower job satisfaction, satisfaction with the leader, perceptions of job core characteristics, and organizational citizenship behaviors. Follower core self-evaluation was found to moderate the relationship between transformational leadership behaviors and follower job satisfaction and satisfaction with the leader. Affect-based trust in the leader was found to fully mediate the relationship between transformational leadership behaviors and follower job satisfaction and satisfaction with the leader and to partially mediate relationships with organizational citizenship behaviors and perceptions of core job characteristics. Practical and theoretical implications as well as future research directions are also discussed.